What Are the Applications of Food Waste Composting?

Food waste is not only large in quantity, but also in various types. In addition to food, it is often mixed with various impurities such as glasses, chopsticks, plastic bags, and cans. Specifically, the food waste content in a typical kitchen waste composition is 89.28%, and the remainder is other impurities.

 

Food waste has high water content and is easy to rot and smell. It is easy to cause secondary pollution during transportation. Food waste is usually disposed of by landfill or incineration. However, the high water content of food waste will have a negative impact on incineration and burial. Treated by incineration, food waste has a low net calorific value and easily produces harmful substances. Disposal by landfill requires a large amount of landfill storage capacity and may also produce leachate that may pollute groundwater and soil.

 

In fact, there are several methods for food waste, namely in-vessel composting, anaerobic digestion and waste-to-fertiliser technology. Kitchen food waste disposers can also effectively solve the above problems. The food waste disposer is installed under the kitchen sink. It is connected to the drain pipe, which can crush organic waste such as leftovers, meat and fish bones, vegetable stems and leaves, melon peels and husks and discharge them into the sewer, so as to clean up food waste from the source.

 

This article focuses on composting, a method of processing food waste.

 

What Is Compost?

 

Composting is the natural process of decomposing and recycling organic materials into humus-rich soil amendments. For any company or organization that produces food waste, this organic material can be easily decomposed into high-quality compost.

 

What Can Be Composted?

 

Generally, compostable items include fruits, vegetables, dairy products, cereals, bread, unbleached napkins, coffee filters, egg shells, meat and newspapers. Items that cannot be composted include plastic, grease, glass and metal, cling film, plastic bags, aluminum foil, silverware, straws, bottles, polystyrene or chemicals. Some substances take longer to decompose, such as red meat, bones and a small amount of paper.

 

The Benefits of Composting for the Environment and Agriculture

 

For the environment, the benefits of composting are as follows.

 

Protect the quality of groundwater and minimize the smell of agricultural areas,

 

By transferring the organic matter in the landfill to the compost, the production of methane and the formation of leachate in the landfill are avoided.

 

Prevent erosion and turf loss on roadsides, hillsides, and sports fields.

 

Greatly reduce the demand for pesticides and fertilizers.

 

For agriculture, the benefits of composting are as follows.

 

Long-term stable source of organic matter.

 

Increase organic matter, humus and cation exchange capacity.

 

Buffer the pH of the soil.

 

Increase the nutrient content and water holding capacity of sandy soil, and increase the water infiltration of clay.

 

Reduce fertilizer demand.

 

Compost is a non-polluting material in the soil.

 

In summary, we understand the benefits of composting to a certain extent. In fact, for the small unit of the family, what we can do is to add a refuse disposer when designing the kitchen, such as kitchen waste processor, smart food waste disposer, kitchen sink food crusher and food waste grinder.

 

The food waste processor is driven by a small DC or AC motor, and uses centrifugal force to crush the food waste in the crushing chamber and discharge it into the sewer. This kind of waste disposer is also suitable for restaurants and other business models, including restaurant waste disposer, commercial food waste disposer and commercial food waste crusher.